


Roundabout

by likehandlingroses



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Arguing, Bonding, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Missing Scene, Misunderstandings, Period-Typical Homophobia, Realization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21924580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likehandlingroses/pseuds/likehandlingroses
Summary: If Richard liked Mr. Barrow less, perhaps he could forget that Mr. Barrow had decided to go dancing rather than wait for him...But he likes Mr. Barrow very much, and so the questions find their way out--encouraged by a few of Mr. Barrow's own making.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Comments: 16
Kudos: 205





	Roundabout

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smithens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/gifts).



> Gifting/dedicating, etc to smithens--because we shouted about this a few days ago! 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!

“Barrow?” The landlord’s eyes widened—just enough for Richard’s stomach to twist. “He said to tell you he’d gone.”

Perhaps he’d only tired of the same pub, Richard told himself, ignoring the way the landlord was eyeing him. 

“Did he happen to say where to?” Lightly, as if it hardly made a difference in any case. 

“Turton’s.” The landlord set down the glass he’d been drying. 

The old _warehouse_? Someone was confused...perhaps he’d meant Tipton’s—they’d passed it on the way—though Richard had _told_ Mr. Barrow this was the nicest place this side of York...

“Seemed to be something funny in it all,” the landlord said after Richard murmured a thank you—he’d try Tipton’s, first...that must have been what Mr. Barrow meant...

“Funny?” Richard stopped in his tracks, stepping closer to the bar. “How’d you mean?”

The landlord’s eyes were wider than ever.

“Well...it’s not for me to say,” he said, eyes dropping down to the next glass in front of him. “Only the bloke he left with tried to stop him saying where they were going, and—”

“—he left with someone?” Richard knew his interruption was imprudent, giving the circumstances, but he didn’t have the willpower to stop it.

Mr. Barrow had left with another man...could Richard have been both right _and_ wrong? 

Thankfully, the landlord took Richard’s agitation as fuel for his own brewing concerns. 

“He did.” More forcefully, this time. Something implied in the words. “Like I said, there were something peculiar in it.”

Richard took a deep breath through his nose. 

“Turton’s, you said?”

* * *

It didn’t take long for Richard to pick up the pattern. A bloke or two would walk up to the warehouse door, look about the street, knock, then disappear into the building. 

It didn’t take a genius to decipher what was going on…

Richard fell back in his seat, knuckles tight against the steering wheel. Of all the ridiculous things…

Why had Mr. Barrow even bothered with telling him where he was going? He couldn’t expect Richard to go in and watch him have a time of it with another man. And anyway, if he felt so sure Richard was like him, then why had he gone off with someone else in the first place? 

_Perhaps he wants to be friends_ …the gracious half of his mind appealed. 

_...then he should have bloody waited like he’d said he would,_ the less gracious half grumbled. 

Instead, he was sitting in a car, stewing in his own disappointment, unsure if Mr. Barrow even wanted him there. Perhaps he’d thought Richard knew all about this side of York, that he’d know what “I’ve gone to Turton’s” meant: that he wanted Richard to hurry back to Downton and leave him to whatever on earth was going on inside that warehouse. 

And what _was_ going on inside? he pondered glumly. They had all sorts of places in London, now. Richard kept a wide berth—what would his mother say, if he went to prison for whatever sat inside? What was the best he could hope for? A dance or two? A lewd show? An anonymous encounter behind a curtain? 

It would never be worth it. He’d promised his family one thing, and that was that he’d be careful. They asked for nothing else—not apologies, not celibacy. Not even silence.

Just a little extra care, from time to time. 

He could manage that, even now. Even when a part of him wanted to storm up to the door and knock on it and find Mr. Barrow and ask him _why_ he’d left him sitting outside for ages and ages, with not a single thought for _his_ feel—

The first police wagon passed the car, and Richard’s hands dropped from the steering wheel, as if that would make him invisible.

_Fuck. Fucking hell._

He didn’t dare move, not while they were getting ready. If he took a step toward the building, they’d think him part of it...or else shoo him away, and then how would he see if the worst were true?

If Mr. Barrow were there...Or Ralph—he hadn’t seen him since they were kids...would he know him, now? Or Johnson...had Freddie Shepard ever come back to York after the war?

It wasn’t worth it, it would never be worth it…

Richard closed his eyes and waited for the whistles. Once they started, it would be safe to look.

He’d _have_ to look. Pay witness, take stock...decide if there was anything he could do but feel sick at heart. 

He opened the door with a shaking hand. Those were the sort of risks you took, the promises you made to yourself. The exceptions to the rule.

He stopped on the far corner, hardly daring to peer at the scene from behind the wall of another building. They came out so fast, in such a crowd...he couldn’t be sure of any face—

—Mr. Barrow tripped coming out—pushed and pulled by officers. Richard forgot to look for anyone else.

He’d only have one go at it, anyway. 

And he’d _told_ Mr. Barrow he’d come back...

* * *

“Let’s move away from here, before anything else…”

Richard’s hands shook on the steering wheel. Having Mr. Barrow safe in hand had provided a temporary salve for his thudding heart and fuming mind...but its effects were quickly diminishing.

It had been easy to lie when he was inside the station. A part to play, that was all. A certain tilt of the head, a roughness in his voice...and he was Someone Else. Nothing stuck, while he was someone else—nothing felt askew, or tugged on his conscience. 

That was the first rule of being Someone Else—if you didn’t believe it, no one else would. 

Later on, that’s when he had to be careful. When Richard Ellis came back, and the words meant something different. 

Especially when Mr. Barrow was sitting next to him, knowing what he knew about Richard...and Richard Ellis was more himself than he was accustomed to ever being while sitting alone in a car with another man.

He parked on the first empty street he found—he couldn’t drive them home, not like this...not when he was furious with the world for making him _lie,_ for frightening him into pretending in a way he’d never pretended before (and never would, for himself. _Never_ ). 

Not when his heart was breaking for the men he’d left behind...and certainly not when he was so terribly happy that Mr. Barrow was safe and sound beside him. 

He’d won—at a terrible price, to be sure...but he’d won. Mr. Barrow was safe in the car, twisting his hands in his lap, deathly pale, the faintest hint of a smile on his face. 

Richard could have kissed him, right on the lips he kept pressing together, as if willing himself to stay terrified. 

He was so dear...Richard had almost forgotten why he’d gone mad for him in the first place. 

“Think we both need a breath,” Richard said. Mr. Barrow nodded, staring straight through the windshield for a good long while before turning to Richard. 

“Thank you,” he said, voice shaking. “I don’t know how to tell you how grateful I am. If you hadn’t—”

Richard held up a hand. “I’m relieved it worked, that’s all.”

For all his confidence going in (the Someone Else first starting to seep through), it might not have gone so well. The sergeant could have been the sort who figured he’d be doing everyone a favor by taking a man in service down a peg or two…

Mr. Wilson would have agreed with him, without a doubt. 

“I feel a bit guilty…” Mr. Barrow said. He was back to staring out the window. “Getting out without a scratch, when the rest of them…”

He trailed off, and Richard closed his eyes in the silence that followed. He didn’t open them before speaking. 

“Some of them will have people to help, come morning.” Odds were, anyway. He wasn’t as special as all _that_ … “Then a few of them will be sharp enough to fend for themselves before it gets to court. It won’t be everyone, but it’ll be some.”

He opened his eyes at Mr. Barrow’s ragged sigh. He half expected his eyes to be closed, too, but Mr. Barrow’s eyes were wide open, looking miserable as ever. 

“And it won’t be enough to stop them starting it up again somewhere else,” Richard finished, trying for a smile. He must have faltered, or else Mr. Barrow was too distracted to notice. 

“You think that’s a mistake,” he said. It wasn’t a question, which stung. He wasn’t _wrong_ , but Richard hadn’t meant to put that fine a point on the subject. 

“I don’t know what I think.” Fingers of his right hand closing on the bottom of the steering wheel. “Except I’m sorry for them, and I’m sure they know what they need better than I do.” 

Mr. Barrow nodded. “But you wouldn’t bother with it?”

Why was he trying to press him? Richard had been more than fair—he didn’t _want_ to be the man who thought it was imprudent. He _understood_ , for God’s sake—of course they wanted a night out, a time to be themselves. 

He wanted those things just as much, and it rankled that Mr. Barrow spoke of his hesitation as if it stemmed from a lack of caring. 

“I know what I’m willing to put my neck out for,” he said shortly. 

Mr. Barrow straightened in his seat. Some of the color had returned to his cheeks—perhaps a bit more than was usual. 

“Surely we’re entitled to a little fun every now and then.”

Is _that_ what he called it? 

“I thought you said York _wasn’t_ any fun?” 

Mr. Barrow ducked his head. 

“I didn’t realize you could find such places in York…”

He didn’t say it like it was meant to shock, but Richard felt bowled over. 

He’d wandered off with a stranger, to places unknown...rather than wait another moment for him. 

“So it was the man you left with who showed you?” he said, a proper bite in his voice. Mr. Barrow’s eyes widened. So he’d been hoping to keep that part quiet…

“The landlord told me,” he continued, not blinking in the face of Mr. Barrow’s stare. He remembered, now, how angry he’d been not an hour before. 

If he liked Mr. Barrow less, perhaps the events of the night would have shocked him out of it. 

Mr. Barrow swallowed. “I didn’t know where he was taking me.” 

Which was entirely beside the point. 

“But you knew _why_ , surely.”

Mr. Barrow’s eyes narrowed, his lips pressing together again as his expression turned tight and cool. Impenetrable. 

“I thought so, yes…” he said. “Which doesn’t happen every day.”

“No. I suppose not.” Richard cleared his throat before continuing. “Then you couldn’t have meant for me to come along.”

Mr. Barrow’s brow furrowed, and Richard waited for his expression to settle. 

“When you told the landlord where you’d gone,” he finished. “I didn’t know what you meant by passing that on when you’d left with someone else.”

Mr. Barrow blinked. “ _I_ didn’t really know what I meant by it.”

Richard nodded, hand back on the steering wheel, fingers tracing the edge. 

“Until you knew for sure whether or not you were going to get what you wanted from the other bloke, you mean…”

Mr. Barrow’s mouth opened, then closed so tightly Richard feared what would come flying out of it once he lost hold. 

“I was waiting for you above two hours in that pub,” Mr. Barrow snapped. “So I suppose I didn’t think it _much mattered_ to you what I meant by telling you where I’d gone.”

He was really and truly going to pretend it was _Richard’s_ fault he’d broken their agreement because some man had made eyes at him…he had some nerve, Richard would give him that. 

“I was meeting with my parents and my sister,” he said, slowly, so he wouldn’t break apart all at once. “She came out especially, with her two little ones. I _told_ you that.”

They’d had a fond and eager conversation about it—Richard talking about his nieces, Mr. Barrow sharing his own stories of the children upstairs. 

He’d thought Mr. Barrow might understand what it meant, then. That his family was the only family he’d ever _have_ , and he had to treasure them all the more dearly because of it. 

Mr. Barrow’s answer suggested he hadn’t understood anything of what Richard had told him: 

“But you didn’t tell me it would take hours.”

“I didn’t think it had to be said,” he bit back. “I was quick about it, considering.”

“Well, when you asked me to come and sit around while you visited with them, I thought that meant it’d be a short look-in.”

“It was!” Two hours, after six months not seeing them? Mr. Barrow couldn’t fathom why a man would need _two hours_ for the people he loved?

“It was _not_ ,” Mr. Barrow said, so fervently that Richard doubted his own position. 

The silence that followed let some of the words settle—they weighed heavy on Mr. Barrow’s shoulders. His voice was tattered and tired...angry at someone who wasn’t Richard: 

“Anyway, as I’ve said: you didn’t have to ask me if I’d be in the way of your _family reunion_.”

Richard closed his eyes at Mr. Barrow’ bitterness—and the pain behind it. He hadn’t even begun to make himself clear this afternoon, then. It wasn’t entirely his fault—when you couldn’t be honest about one thing, everything else turned opaque, somehow. 

But it wasn’t Mr. Barrow’s fault, either. 

“We had all night, I thought,” he said, voice soft. Mr. Barrow’s ear turned towards him, some, but he didn’t face him properly, and he didn’t reply. 

“You only get so much time for the things you want to do,” Richard continued. “See, if I could have one whole night with them and one whole night with you, of course that’s how I’d manage it...I don’t care much for being hurried along. But you have to sort things out as best you can, and that’s what I was trying to do. Not well, apparently.”

Mr. Barrow took a deep breath—he looked as if he might start crying. 

“I’m sorry if you felt badly used,” Richard said, meaning it more than he could have imagined even a minute before. “I didn’t mean that, and I see now why you thought—”

Mr. Barrow shook his head. He still didn’t face Richard. 

“We didn’t set a time,” he said gruffly. “And I’d told you I’d wait for you to come back, so I...well, I’m surprised you bothered with waiting for me after that. Not to mention the rest of it.”

Richard’s heart sunk into his stomach. 

“I’d have come got you out no matter what had happened.” This pulled Mr. Barrow’s gaze towards him, and they both swallowed as they locked eyes. “You know that?”

Mr. Barrow’s jerky almost-nod was enough to settle Richard’s stomach. 

Mr. Barrow searched Richard’s face. 

“I’d…” he stopped, ducking his head towards his lap. “Well, when I said I’d come...I’d _hoped_ that…”

“We’d understand each other?” Richard finished. 

_So not just friends, then._

Mr. Barrow nodded. 

“And I wasn’t angry with you, when I left,” he said, smiling at Richard’s look of doubt. “I wasn’t! If I was angry at anyone, it was myself. For getting my hopes up again...and if I’d been less angry with myself, perhaps I’d have waited longer. Would have saved us some trouble…”

“Well, it’s the trouble that got us talking.” And arguing. And then finishing with that, and deciding to tell the truth for the first time since they’d met. 

Not a bad turn of events, all things considered. 

“I’m sorry if I made you feel unwanted…” Mr. Barrow said. “It must have been worse for you, waiting and knowing and all. Thinking you’d been put off for someone else.”

Richard laughed. It seemed silly, now. Sillier, even, than it had during the raid. 

“I was feeling quite sorry for myself,” he admitted. 

“And upset with me…” Mr. Barrow said with a grin. “You can say so, Mr. Ellis. I won’t mind.”

“I _might_ have considered which piece of my mind to give you…though I don’t think I could have done it, really.” 

Mr. Barrow tilted his head to the side, lips twisted in a knowing grin. 

“No?” he murmured, cheeky as anything. 

Richard was back to wondering how he’d managed not to kiss him senseless yet...

“No,” he replied, cheeky right back. Mr. Barrow’s grin widened, showing his teeth. 

“Why’s that?” 

He could play such games all night with Mr. Barrow and never be tired, but Richard thought it’d be better to finish with being sincere before getting off course. 

Button up one thing, then on to the next...

“Because I’m like you.” One last bit of flirting—and he savored how it made Mr. Barrow flush. “And I think I was mostly angry with myself, not you. For not being clearer, for not trying harder—”

“—how can we learn enough to know how to manage all that—”

“—and I’m terribly fond of you, so I couldn’t be sorry you were off being happy.” 

Mr. Barrow’s mouth clamped shut, his words of reassurance all vanished—Richard could see them evaporating as his mind made room for what Richard had said.

He hadn’t really meant to be _that_ sincere, all at once...but there they were. 

“I wouldn’t want you to feel badly for having a night out,” he finished, voice shaking. “It’s like you said: we’re entitled to a bit of fun. And sometimes it feels like it’ll never come, so I understand you taking the chance. I _do_.”

That’s all he’d had to say from the start. Richard saw that, now. Mr. Barrow had been searching for those words—they were so easy, so simple...and true, completely true. 

Sometimes you had to take a roundabout way to things—even the simplest. And though it took more time, it had its own rewards: now Richard had far more to go on than if he’d happened on the right words by luck. 

Far more than he could have guessed. 

“I think I’d have gone with you,” he said. “If you’d asked me.”

Mr. Barrow raised an eyebrow. “What, to Turton’s?”

Richard nodded. “Yes.”

He’d never have said such a thing without knowing it were completely true—though he didn’t know _why_ he felt it was suddenly true...except that his attachment to Mr. Barrow was getting _quite_ out of hand.

Richard watched Mr. Barrow’s face light up, feeling giddy. 

He hoped it never stopped. 

“If I’d known about you or Turton’s, I’d have _asked_ you,” Mr. Barrow said, so sincerely that Richard didn’t know if he could call it flirting, really. It was something else—fondness, affection...pure and unadulterated. 

Dangerous stuff. Lovely, too. Not to be lived without. 

Richard stared at him, feeling breathless. 

“Well, that’s something, isn’t it?” he said softly. Mr. Barrow nodded—the coyness and mischief was back in his eye. 

“I’d even have waited above two hours, if you’d asked,” he quipped, leaning closer. His hand was almost touching Richard’s own.

 _That’s what he wants_ , Richard realized, sure as anything. 

And the way it felt, to take a hand he was sure of...Richard could sing down the stars at how Mr. Barrow squeezed his hand right back.

“I won’t ask you to, next time,” Richard promised, as Mr. Barrow took off the glove on his right hand. Richard did the same with his left, and the fingers that intertwined with his were warm and soft and unafraid. 

“What were you going to show me, in York?” Mr. Barrow asked, after an easy silence fell in the car. 

“Next time, Mr. Barrow…” Richard teased. 

“The more you build it up…”

“The nicer it’ll be when I’m right.”

Mr. Barrow squeezed his hand again, closing his eyes for a good long while before snapping them open and looking at Richard apologetically. 

“We should get back, then,” he murmured.

“Right.”

It didn’t pain him as much as he’d feared, taking his hand away from Mr. Barrow’s. 

He could always put it back, in time. 

“I think I remember the way…”

Mr. Barrow sat up, squinting through the windshield. 

“You’ll want to turn around, to get to the quickest road.”

Richard grinned at him. “I know.”


End file.
